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"It has been home to Huguenot silk weavers, Jewish tailors and Bangladeshi shopkeepers, but today Spitalfields is known for its hipster vibe, chic market and stylish bars. Residents include artists Tracey Emin and Gilbert and George, and a delicatessen trades from the ground floor of a house owned by the novelist Jeanette Winterson.

But tensions have emerged over a proposal by some residents to establish a local town council within the borough of Tower Hamlets, which stretches for several miles across east London to the Newham border.

Supporters of the plan say it would increase accountability and allow issues of concern to local residents, such as litter and street lighting, to be addressed. Critics point to additional bureaucracy and the diversion of funds – and a risk of entrenching divisions between the affluent occupants of carefully restored 18th-century dwellings and the residents of run-down housing estates to the east and south, many of whom are of Bangladeshi heritage.

It is more than 100 years since Spitalfields last had its own governing authority, in the form of a civil parish set up in 1729. That was absorbed into the Metropolitan borough of Stepney in 1911, then merged into Tower Hamlets in 1965.

"But residents are entitled to seek to establish a town council within a borough if they have sufficient local support. A petition gathered 324 signatures – hardly an avalanche but enough, they say, to trigger a borough council vote..."

"A town council would receive a proportion – between 15% and 25% – of any levies paid by developers to spend on local amenities. It would also be able to charge a precept on top of council tax, which supporters say would typically be £1 a week for each household. The council would comprise 10 to 12 elected officials.

“The issues that bother people are quite minor – litter, benches, green spaces, street lighting – but they make a place more pleasant to live in,” said David Donoghue, the coordinator of the town council campaign, who has lived in Spitalfields for 20 years.

There were also concerns about antisocial behaviour, including noise, urinating in public and vomiting, he added. A town council would be better positioned to deal with such problems. “The borough council doesn’t really get to the nitty gritty. We would have more local engagement, reflecting the views of people in the area,” he said.

Krissie Nicolson, director of the East End Trades Guild, which represents independent businesses in the area, said: “Anything that strengthens local democracy is a great idea. A town council will give local businesses a chance to have a greater say. A lot of big businesses have muscled in over recent years, and this would create a more even playing field.”

"Spit-and-sawdust pubs are still out there if that’s what you’re looking for, but old-fashioned local drinking dens, perhaps patronised by a few regulars and a much-loved but ageing dog, are on the wane. As the number of pubs in Britain dwindles, those that survive tend to look a bit different."

One eye on the Hall...

"The local pub is local to no one because no one is local"

Still trying to establish if the North Bay has a 'smirf' aka Blue Flag

I'll be Bach...

"The key message is to be responsible and not to drink or take drugs before driving."

"The long-running saga over plans for a multi-screen cinema in Scarborough’s North Bay has taken another twist as the design of the building has been changed once more.

Scarborough Council granted permission to Benchmark Leisure Limited to build the cinema, car park and restaurant development on the former Atlantis water park site at Peasholm Gap in 2015 but the scheme has been dogged by delays.

Originally scheduled to open in 2018, that was pushed back to first 2019, then 2020.

Now, a new set of plans has been submitted to the council which will drastically alter the scheme.

The most recent set of plans will keep the six cinema screens and five restaurant units, though the size of the eateries is reduced.

Added are a gym and sky bar. The number of proposed residential units as part of the development will now be 63, which is 30 more than in the first planning application.

However, the biggest change is to the proposed multi-storey car park which will lose nearly 200 spaces. Under the new plans, it will have just 109 spaces, with 31 of those for residents of the flats.

The planning document states: “The majority of parking demand generated by the development will be met by utilising the capacity of existing public car parks in the vicinity of the site, which amount to approximately 900 parking spaces.

“A Variable Message Sign (VMS) system will be used to direct visitors to nearby public car parks when the on-site car park is approaching capacity.”

It adds: “The proposed Sky Bar is a new inclusion to the scheme, providing an upper level cafe/bar accompanied with roof terrace that provides views of the Bay.

“The Sky Bar provides a new evening element to the development, that were not provided in previous proposals.”

The applicant’s report adds that without the increase in residential units the scheme would not be “financially viable”.